Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) testing procedure

Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) are electronic devices that return a craft\u2019s angular velocities and translational accelerations. They are used in many industries, such as underwater and aviation robotics. There is a large variation in IMU cost, and when considering the dependability of different IMUs, generally their manufacturers provide completely different metrics to quantify their performance. Because of this, it is very difficult to decide which sensor has a more reasonable cost-to-performance ratio for any particular project.To solve this dilemma, research and experimentation at IOT began. First a specialized apparatus was created to mount all IMUs to the same rigid body. MATLAB 4 applications were then written to simultaneously record data from all of the IMUs, while they were experiencing motion. Unfortunately a series of issues continued to occur, and after many trials, it was decided that a solution other than these MATLAB applications had to be designed.The Data Logger application is data acquisition software written in Java and is designed to be as lightweight and robust as possible. This application was created as a solution to the issues experienced with the formerly mentioned MATLAB applications. Once Data Logger was finished, experimentation was much more simple and the testing could begin again.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye